Yes, an Assault Weapons Ban is Unconstitutional

On Friday, April 6, 2018, U.S. District Judge William Young said assault weapons are military firearms and aren't protected by the constitutional right to “bear arms.” However, he couldn’t be more wrong.

First and foremost, the term “Assault-Weapon” is a made up term by the gun control lobby to strike fear into the hearts and minds of Americans. Gun control activists rely very heavily on fear-based language to persuade Americans that guns are inherently evil, and that the only solution is to pass stricter gun control laws.

Assault is an action; it’s a verb, not a noun. Firearms have no soul, they’re not living objects, and they are not inherently evil. You could put a loaded firearm on a table, leave it there, and unless somebody picked it up, aimed it, and pulled the trigger; the firearm would remain harmless. That settles the debate of “guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”

The origin of this term “Assault-Weapon” is not one hundred percent clear. According to the Nexis News database, the first mention of “assault weapons” appeared in a 1980 New York Times story. Over the past several decades, gun-control proponents have heavily relied on this terminology and have blanket-applied it to any firearm that looked scary.

Secondly, gun-control proponents now slap the term “assault” onto any firearm they don’t like or want to be restricted from public use. The public mistakes the “AR” in AR-15 to mean “assault rifle,” while fake news headquarters CNN, frequently refers to AR-15’s as “assault rifles.” The “AR” in “AR-15” stands for “ArmaLite Rifle,” the company that first manufactured the AR-15 in December 1959.

Thirdly, let's address the issue of the “AR-15” and how dangerous it is. These are semi-automatic rifles, not “fully automatic machine guns” as some gun control puppets, like Whoopi Goldberg, would have you think. Semi auto firearms have been in public circulation for more than 60 years. It wasn’t until almost 50 years later that we saw one used in a mass shooting.

Furthermore, if we look back at the recent mass murders committed with an AR-15, we see a trend. These criminals should not have had access to a firearm in the first place, or law enforcement failed to act upon credible information.

Nikolas Cruz – Parkland massacre. Police had visited Cruz’s home more than 30 times since 2011. Even worse, the FBI had received tips about Cruz before he committed his horrible act. The first tip on September 24, 2017, when Cruz posted the comment “I'm going to be a professional school shooter,” on a YouTube video, and the second on January 5, 2018, when an anonymous person called the FBI to warn them about Cruz. The FBI admitted to not following established follow up protocols. “Under established protocols, the information provided by the caller should have been assessed as a potential threat to life,” the FBI said.

Devin Patrick Kelley – Sutherland, Texas Church massacre. Kelley should not have had access to firearms, according to Texas Governor Abbott and current federal law. Kelley was dishonorably discharged from the military, which automatically bars someone from ever purchasing firearms again.
Omar Mateen – Pulse Nightclub massacre. Mateen had been on the FBI’s suspected terrorist list, investigated twice by the FBI for terrorism, and convicted of misdemeanor hate crimes.

Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik – San Bernardino massacre. According to then FBI Director James Comey, both were “radicalized” before they started dating each other and that they were “homegrown violent extremists” who were “inspired by foreign terrorist organizations.” Farook and Malik did not purchase their firearms. The firearms used in the massacre were a “straw purchase” bought by Enrique Marquez Jr., who pleaded guilty in February 2017.
Fourthly and finally, an “assault weapons” ban certainly violates the Second Amendment. In 2008, Justice Scalia handed down one of the most historic, landmark decisions in the history of the United States Supreme Court. DC v. Heller held that “the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia.”

In the majority’s opinion written by Justice Scalia, he states that the second amendment protects firearms that are in “common use.” The National Rifle Association estimates that there are more than eight million AR-15s and its variations in circulation. The AR-15 has been in circulation and readily available for purchase, by law-abiding citizens, since 1959. If you’re still not sold on the fact that AR-15s, and its variations, are in “common use” you can read these self-defense stories from 2013 – 2018, in which an AR-15 saved lives and stopped crime.

Written by Tyler Yzaguirre, SAI President. Originally published on AmmoLand.com.